A newly discovered genetic variant protects against a particularly devastating form of early Alzheimer's disease, raising scientists' hopes of finding treatments that can prevent or slow the progression of this and other forms of the disease.
The discovery is only the second gene variant reported to protect against autosomal dominant Alzheimer's disease (ADAD), a form of Alzheimer's caused by an inherited genetic mutation. People with ADAD begin to show signs of dementia in their mid-40s and rarely survive past the age of 60, study co-author Dr. Joseph Arboleda-Velasquez, a biomedical researcher at Harvard University, told Live Science.
